For some reason, academics and journals frown on using possessives. I don't understand it myself. For journals, I think it is to eliminate apostrophes to save space. What is funny about that is to avoid them more words are typically used, or meaning is lost due to tortured strings of nouns. The possessive case is very useful and can improve your writing. Here is a good article on its types of use:
https://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/blog/2020/06/a-guide-to-double-possessives/
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Here is a fun article I posted on LinkedIn:
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/apostrophe-society-shuts-down-because-ignorance-has-won-a4301391.html In academic writing I see mostly commas that are being used to accomplish much more than they are designed for. One option is to use a colon. This link is to an article that gives a overview of colon use. Punctuation can be used to enliven your text more effectively than verbosity.
http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/blog/2019/09/a-guide-to-using-colons/ The link below goes to a checklist and advice on the steps needed to successfully submit your article. The checklist comes from the website of the Journal of Financial Economics. I though both young and old might find it useful.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1oMzJppG-7eg-z0Fj2laJObvcrj6HgDWI One of my jobs as a copyeditor is to weed out the wordiness in a paper. This article explains one form of wordiness that surrounds verbs. Another form is adding unneeded words to embellish another. An example is the word "activity." Risk-taking is an activity so saying risk-taking activity is wordy. Another very common add-on is "behavior." Risk-taking is a behavior and does not need to be labelled as such. Part of the problem here is the word order. The real phrase is that someone "is taking a risk." In this word order it becomes clearer that the activity is the taking of risk and if done frequently is a behavior that a person exhibits.
Here is the link to the article: https://aceseditors.org/news/2019/clamp-down-on-unhelping-verbs A common problem in academic writing is long introductory clauses. Stylistically, these tend to be repetitive and to be used as brief summaries that are really needed and can confuse. That is particularly true when they create danglers, which are grammatically incorrect.
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Author: Jonathan MooreCopyeditor of economics Archives
December 2019
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